COVID Inquiry’s Dodgy 23K Deaths Claim — And BBC Audiences Walk Away

A week of rising costs, failing institutions and a government paralysed as the public pays the price.

This week on Stat of the Nation, we have Brits leaving in record numbers, the BBC’s funding model collapsing, the Covid Inquiry leaning on shaky modelling, inflation stuck because of bad policy, and another horrific case exposing border failures.

Here’s what you may have missed.

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🟦 Brits Are Leaving in Record Numbers — While Non-EU Arrivals Surge

The latest ONS figures show a clear trend: more British citizens are leaving the UK than in recent years.

Key points from the data:

• British emigration is higher than before the pandemic

• Over the last four years, nearly one million Brits have moved abroad

• Meanwhile, non-EU immigration remains extremely high, dominating overall arrivals

We are now seeing a major demographic shift: more Brits leaving the country, replaced largely by non-EU nationals — many employed in lower-paid health and care roles, or arriving as dependants who are not required to work at all.

A simple, important trend — and one that will shape the UK for years to come.

Brits Are Leaving in Record Numbers — While Non-EU Arrivals Continue to Surge

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🦠 Covid Lockdowns Weren’t Science — They Were Panic

This week, reporting around the Covid Inquiry highlighted a striking claim: that locking down one week earlier would have “saved 23,000 lives.”

That number deserves serious scrutiny because modelling throughout the pandemic proved highly unreliable.

We don’t need to know exactly which model the Inquiry relied on to make the basic point:

• Pandemic forecasts regularly overestimated deaths and hospitalisations

• Short-term projections were often tens of thousands out

• Late-2021 models were up to 93% wrong

• Many scenarios were never validated against real-world outcomes

If modelling struggled to predict what would happen weeks ahead, it cannot reliably tell us what “would have” happened in March 2020.

Despite this, the 23,000 avoided deaths figure has been widely repeated as if it is a settled fact — even as the Inquiry’s cost has reached £192 million.

Meanwhile, it continues to avoid the real questions:

• The collapse in early diagnosis

• The years-long damage to non-Covid healthcare

• The explosion in waiting lists

• The long-term harm caused by shutting down normal NHS services

Counterfactual numbers based on uncertain modelling are not evidence — they’re speculation.

Covid Lockdowns Weren’t Science — They Were Global Panic

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📺 The BBC in Crisis — A Licence Fee Model Built for a World That No Longer Exists

The BBC’s problems aren’t just financial — they’re structural. The licence fee was created for a Britain with one channel, no internet, and no real choice. Today, people consume content through various platforms, including streaming services, YouTube, TikTok, podcasts, and on-demand services. The BBC is no longer the default — it’s one option among hundreds.

Yet the funding model still forces households to pay £174.50 a year whether they watch BBC content or never use it at all.

And the public is opting out.

• 3.6 million households now refuse to pay, up from 2.4 million in 2021

• A growing £1.1bn funding gap

• Younger audiences barely engage with BBC output

• Trust and relevance continue to fall

• Senior leadership departures add to instability

The question is now obvious - Why should people be compelled to pay for a service they may never use, in a media world where choice has exploded?

The licence fee made sense in 1946. It does not make sense in 2025.

Reform isn’t optional — it’s inevitable.

The BBC in Crisis as 50% More Households Ditch the Licence Fee

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📈 Inflation Remains Stubborn — And Government Policy Is Making It Worse

The UK still has the highest inflation in the G7 at 3.6%. And this is not bad luck — it is the consequence of government policy.

The Labour Government has increased the cost of employing people and running a business, and those costs have been passed straight on to consumers.

Taxes on jobs, higher employer burdens, new regulatory costs, rising fees — all pushed into prices. The result?

• Higher inflation

• Higher costs for households and businesses

• Higher interest payments on government borrowing

• Higher welfare spending, because benefits rise with inflation

• Lower tax revenues, as payroll numbers fall

This creates a damaging loop:

Fewer jobs → lower tax receipts → higher inflation → higher government spending → more borrowing → even higher inflation.

And at the centre is a Chancellor who is clearly out of her depth — and doing economic damage every day she remains in post.

This isn’t misfortune. It’s a policy failure.

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🚨 Another Afghan Child Rapist Case — Border Failures Continue

Another horrific case hit the courts this week: an Afghan national admitted to raping a 12-year-old girl in Nuneaton. Serious crimes like this are being committed by individuals who should never have been in the UK in the first place.

The public deserves answers:

• How did he enter the country?

• What vetting, if any, was carried out?

The Home Office’s role is to ensure the safety and security of the United Kingdom by delivering a secure border and operating a controlled and managed immigration system.

On both measures — public safety and border security — it is failing repeatedly.

This is not an isolated failure. It is systemic failure. And confidence in the system is collapsing.

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🛂 Visa Bans Sound Tough — But Affect Just 0.24% of the Asylum Problem

The Government made headlines this week by threatening visa sanctions on Angola, Namibia and the DRC — but the numbers show these warnings barely touch the real pressures.

The UK recorded 111,084 asylum claims in the past year. Only 265 came from these three countries — just 0.24% of all claims — and only 5 small-boat arrivals from the DRC, with none from Angola or Namibia.

Namibia’s brief spike in 2022–23 has already collapsed.

Meanwhile, the real pressure continues to come from countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea, Bangladesh, India, Sudan and Syria, which generate tens of thousands of claims, often from people who first arrived legally before switching into the asylum system.

So the question becomes - Will Labour backbenchers even support their own Cabinet trying to look tougher?

They couldn’t even reform welfare — that collapsed within days.

This Government is paralysed. And the public is paying the price.

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🔍 Conclusion

Across every area we’ve looked at this week, the pattern is the same: Britain is drifting while the Government stands still.

More Brits are leaving the country, while arrivals from outside the EU continue at historically high levels. The BBC is clinging to a funding model designed for a different century. Inflation is being kept high by deliberate policy choices that raise business costs and depress growth.

The borders are failing, with serious offences committed by people who should never have been here. And the Covid Inquiry is still relying on modelling that we know cannot be trusted to rewrite history.

These are not isolated problems — they are symptoms of a country being badly managed. A government paralysed by internal division. And the public is paying the price every single day.

✍️ Jamie Jenkins
Stats Jamie | Stats, Facts & Opinions

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